. Artificial twinning refers to the practice of adopting two unrelated children who are closer than 9 months apart. Artificial twinning is discouraged by most domestic adoption social workers; the only way to get around this is to adopt internationally. Some international agencies encourage the practice, some discourage it. Most countries, Russia included, do not prohibit the practice.

The reason it's discouraged domestically is because artificial twinning puts a great deal of stress on the adoptive parents and causes undue hardship on the children who are being adopted. Going from no children to two children or one to three or two to four, etc. can be overwhelming.

While we were in the process of adopting my son I figured out that with my agency's fees and the way the adoption tax credit worked, if we adopted two children at once we would basically be out the same amount of money as we would just adopting one. I encouraged my husband to think about it - 2 children at the same time - how fun! - but he said NO. Too much, he said. We need to get used to one more member of our family before we add another - and I wasn't even thinking of artificially twinning - I was thinking of a sibling group.

Boy am I glad he put his foot down. It was challenging enough to adopt one, much less two, and much less two of the same age. I can't emphasize enough how challenging it is to parent a post-institutionalized child, even if you get lucky and your child is able to overcome the PI effects. Children from Russia are in the database - and in the orphanage - for a minimum of 8 months now. They will have issues. Hopefully ones they and you can get over, but as a parent of a child adopted from an institution you should count on it. An orphanage is not a great place to be during your formative years.

And parenting two PI kids at once? I think I would've had a nervous breakdown.

Harriet McCarthy, who's written on the subject of artificial twinning, makes some excellent points in this article . She and her husband adopted two boys of the same age and as someone who lived through it she has much wisdom on the subject. Here's an excerpt from her peice:

I equate artificial twinning with walking through mine fields in a battle zone. Until our children have lived with us long enough to know and trust us, the potential for serious problems is ever present. Our "twins" have been home with us for the past 23 months. I look back and I'm amazed that my husband and I survived the stress that came to us so unexpectedly. We have had tremendous challenges with both children, but had a particularly difficult time with the youngest boy who was diagnosed "failure to thrive" once he arrived here. His need for help was all consuming and immediate. Within a few months, my career was derailed, and I became a full-time, therapeutic parent.

The effort, I'm happy to say, paid off. We have become what I'd always hoped we could be - a loving and mutually dependent nucleus. All our boys are absolutely wonderful. They are three very distinct and strong individuals with incredible spirit. Although we fall into the category of families whose children have successfully made attachments to their adoptive parents, the process was fraught with difficulty and tension. Many families don't survive the pressures of these transitions. There are growing numbers of families in distress who choose disruption of one or both of the children rather than suffer through the worst of the adjustment.

If you consider nothing else, think of the welfare of the children. You can't possibly be in two places at once. Very few of us are successful giving over 100 percent to two needy children. My advice as a veteran adoptive parent is to adopt as many children as you want and can afford, just be sure to leave yourself and each child at least a year or more to settle in and get to know each other before taking on one more. All of you will be the beneficiaries of your patience.